


Waiting is the Hardest Part

by whichstiel



Series: Season 12 Codas [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x08, Coda, Gen, Hellatus, Hiatus, Lotus, M/M, Prayer, Season/Series 12, episode coda, searching for winchesters, spn 12x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 16:04:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8807281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: Castiel searches for the Winchesters.





	

** **

******Week 1**

“I don’t owe you a thing, Feathers,” Crowley says with a smirk. Castiel clenches his fist and suddenly regrets agreeing to meet with Crowley in a diner. Cooling cups of coffee sit in front of both of them. “And besides, I’m busy.”

“You spent weeks doing nothing but dogging me incessantly and now you’re too busy? Crowley, all I’m asking-”

Crowley dips a finger in his coffee. Steam begins to rise from the cup and he picks it up and takes a careful sip before making a face and setting it down hurriedly. “I’m. Busy. I’ve got a kingdom to put to order.” 

“Sam and Dean helped put Lucifer away so you’d have a kingdom to win back. Are you honestly telling me you think you don’t owe them?” 

Crowley raises one eyebrow. “Hmm, I think we’re forgetting the natural order of things,” he growls. “I’m the bloody King of Hell.”

Castiel simply sets his jaw and glares. Finally, Crowley sighs. “Very well, I’ll put out some feelers. Okay?” He smiles a broad, fake smile at Castiel and teleports away. 

“Can I get you folks anything else?” a chipper waiter asks a moment later, looking around confused when he only sees one person sitting in the booth. 

“Check, please,” says Castiel. He can’t summon an answering smile.

**Week 2**

Castiel stretches his arms over his head, cracking shoulder joints disturbing the silence of the bunker. After the last lead on Sam and Dean’s whereabouts went dry he retreated back to Kansas to search for other clues. His phone has been silent; there are no calls from Crowley.

He’s been hunched over Dean’s laptop for sixteen hours and nothing has come across the Internet scanning applications that would indicate the Winchesters’ location. It’s frustrating work. Castiel is a soldier. He should be  _ doing _ something.  _ Fighting _ something. He rubs his forehead wearily. Angel radio has subsided somewhat over the ensuing weeks but it is still tonally closer to horrified screeching now that Lucifer’s offspring gestates somewhere on the planet. He doesn’t dare switch it off, though. He feels stiff, exhausted on a cosmic level. 

Castiel pushes away from the table. Maybe he should make some coffee. The caffeine will have no effect, of course, but maybe swallowing the compound will distract him. He can still appreciate the sensation of the liquid swirling in his mouth, if nothing else. 

> _ Hey, Cas. _

Castiel closes his eyes as Dean’s prayer engulfs him. Last week Dean prayed to him for the first time in years. His grace extends and receives the Words. 

> _ More cold noodles and tomato sauce tonight. ‘Tomato sauce’ in air quotes because I don’t think whatever this is has ever seen the far side of a vegetable. The food’s crap. Man, I could really go for some pie. Or a steak. Mmm steak. Sorry, man. Gonna lose my gut if this keeps up.  _
> 
> _ Nobody’s questioned me in three days, Cas. I think they’re starting to think we’re just crazy but honestly? I’d rather be committed at this point. A psych ward would be easier to break out of than this place. And at least we’d be in the system. The main interrogator keeps cackling about this being a nowhere place for nothing people. What a dick. _
> 
> _ Anyway, I guess you can tell I don’t have any new information for you. Can’t hear Sammy. Haven’t seen him for- _
> 
> _ Well. Talk to ya later, Cas. _

**Week 3**

Castiel tracked Kelly to her best friend’s house. From his truck parked down the street he can just make out her features as she ventures down the front walkway to get the mail. Her stomach swells visibly under an oversized sweater and Castiel’s gut clenches in worry. Lucifer’s spawn grew quickly.

“Damn it,” Castiel mutters and he pounds the steering wheel. No doctor would abort the pregnancy now. None would believe that she was barely a month along. 

In the old days he would simply walk up to her, press his blade through her heart, and tear out the child. In the old days human blood and pain and grief were like a foreign language to him, heard but not understood. But Castiel wants - _needs_ \- to be better. Hope seeps around his sense of duty, staining and muddying it.

> _ Hey, Cas. _

“Dean,” he says aloud, fruitlessly. Dean is silent for a while and Castiel presses his forehead against the steering wheel, wishing desperately that God had made prayer go both ways. “Dean,” he finally whispers, “what do I do?” There’s no reply, of course, and after several minutes Dean finally prays again. 

> _ Today I got to meet another interrogator. Making so many friends at summer camp, Cas, you have no idea.  _
> 
> _ Fuck.  _
> 
> _ I’ll be fine. I’m okay.  _
> 
> _ Fuck. _

The prayer falls silent for several more long minutes, though Castiel can feel desperation, fear, and pain strong enough to make his grace quail under the onslaught. 

> _ Soup this morning. Soup for fucking breakfast. These people are animals.  _

**Week 4**

The vampire snarls and lunges for him but Castiel is ready. He ducks its attack and it trips over his extended leg, rolls over his back, and lands on the checked linoleum floor in the farmhouse kitchen. Castiel brings up his sword and slices its head off cleanly. Blood spreads in a pool around the body and Castiel senses the fifth attacker at his shoulder. He whirls and presses his fingers into the monster’s face. White light pours from its eyes, its mouth, until it falls to the floor with the rest of its decimated nest. 

Castiel drags the bodies into a pile and incinerates the pile, the house catching fire as he walks through the front door. Air currents as the fire engulfs the house make his coat billow behind him and he absently zaps the blood and smoke from his clothing when he gets back into his truck to drive away. 

He’s been tracking a lead on Dean’s and Sam’s whereabouts in Florida. Unfortunately, he’s only turned up a shapeshifter and a nest of vampires on his journey south. 

> _ Cas. Cas. _

Castiel smiles and starts the truck. 

> _ Cas, I am bored outta my fucking mind. Today I started making lists in my head of Doctor Sexy episodes. I think Doctor Betty Lane was only in five episodes but I can’t remember. Wish I had my phone. I’d IMDB that mother.  _

Castiel listens to Dean talk about television as the burning house recedes in his rearview mirror. 

> _ Listen, man. I know this has gotta be driving you crazy. Me and my own...crazy. But also, I know you man. And you gotta know this isn’t your fault. Okay? You did the right thing, getting Kelly outta there. Getting yourself safe. You did the right thing.  _
> 
> _ Anyway, hang in there, buddy. Uh, over and out.  _

**Week 5**

Castiel thinks again about calling the British Men of Letters. He remembers Mick’s number from when he handed Castiel his card. He could drive out to the middle of nowhere and meet their agent, Arthur Ketch. Surely with their diplomatic ties and deep magical history they would be more useful in the search for the Winchesters. 

Still, he remembers Ketch’s glimmering black gaze as he said to him, “Oh, I do enjoy an angel.” Castiel shudders. Many of his brothers and sisters were lost in their fall to Earth, but many more found vessels, made it to the surface, and eked out a life until they could be returned to Heaven. He doesn’t recall hearing of any angels landing in Great Britain, but perhaps there is a reason for that. 

No. Arthur Ketch spoke to Castiel like he was a tool, and he looked at him like he was a toy. And the Men of Letters are dangerous. It was their invention that expelled Lucifer, an archangel, from his vessel. He’s no use to the Winchesters dead. 

Dean’s prayer shudders to life around him. 

> _ Leaves are falling all around _ __  
>  _ It's time I was on my way _ __  
>  _ Thanks to you I'm much obliged _ __  
>  _ For such a pleasant stay _ __  
>  _ But now it's time for me to go _ __  
>  _ The autumn moon lights my way _ __  
>  _ For now I smell the rain _ _  
>  _ _ And with it pain _ _  
>  _ __ And it's headed my way

“Ah, sometimes I grow so tired.” Castiel’s voice cracks with disuse and he’s never been able to carry a tune in this vessel. He sings along with Dean and tries to send his prayers back through the channel. “But I know I've got one thing I got to do... ”

**Week 6**

Samantha Mitchell sits in the booth of the diner, looking spectacularly out of place in her spotless white suit. Castiel slides into the opposite seat. “You’re Crowley’s friend?”

The woman looks pained at the description, but reluctantly nods. “You’re the one looking for the Winchesters?” Castiel nods and she sighs. “Okay, listen up. Here’s what I know.” She pulls out a paper and outlines the pertinent details before dipping the paper in her glass of water. It’s entirely dissolved before she finishes standing up from the table. 

**Week 7**

Mary rests her head on her hands for just a moment as she feels the weight of their mission. Castiel grimaces. “You don’t have to come with me, Mary.”

She pulls herself upright and glares at him. “These are my boys. If you think for a second I wouldn’t move the stars for them...”

A smile very nearly steals across Castiel’s face. Her fervor is a relief after weeks of silence. They discuss their plan as the bar’s population dwindles around them. 

> _ Okay, Cas. _

Dean’s prayer bursts in suddenly like sunshine from behind thick clouds. 

> _ I’ve got a new plan. We go to one of those friggin’ all inclusive places, okay? All you can eat. Nothing but sand and booze and sun. Hell, we’ll even pick up a pair of swim trunks for you. Angels have gotta know how to swim, right? Well, I’ll teach ya.  _

“What is it?” Mary asks. She’s looking at him oddly and he realizes he’s smiling. He tells her about Dean’s prayer. 

“You know how to swim, right?”

Mary laughs. “Yes, Castiel. I know how to swim.”

“Good.”

She sips her beer while Castiel listens, relaying Dean’s fantastical plans, their own plans for storming the compound scrawled on scrap paper around the table. This is going to work. It has to work. 

> _ And nothing but frouffy drinks, man. I’m talkin’ umbrellas. Fucking fruit on sticks. _
> 
> _ Yeah. Awesome. _


End file.
